The Henry Darger Study Center at the American Folk Art Museum
Two Darger paintings on view in the galleries of the American Folk Art Museum.
The Henry Darger Study Center was established in 2000 and continues to be one of the most popular areas in the American
Folk Art Museum's permanent collection. It holds Darger's complete writings, 26 paintings and an archive of source
material, tracings and drawings that offer profound insight into Darger's world and his working methods.
In the spring of 2005, Dance Theater Workshop and the American Folk Art Museum collaborated on "Intensely Darger," a program featuring a series of Henry Darger-influenced events including a screening and discussion of "In the Realms of the Unreal," a read-a-thon of Darger's written
work, and a dance performance of The Pat Graney Company's "The Vivian Girls," a work that was inspired by Darger's art.
The Pat Graney Company in a performance of "The Vivian Girls," a dance piece inspired by the work of Henry Darger. Enlargements of Darger's paintings were used as set backdrops.
The Henry Darger Collection at the Center for Intuitive and Outsider Art
For many years Nathan and Kiyoko Lerner left intact the apartment that Henry Darger occupied, but in 2003 Kiyoko donated the contents of the room to Chicago's Intuit: the The Center for Intuitive and Outsider Art to care for and preserve Darger's effects for future generations. The collection includes architectural features, furnishings such as a fireplace mantel, cabinets, tables, chairs and the typewriter used by Darger, along with personal ephemera and artist supplies and materials.
Intuit is currently at work on an installation of selected items from the collection. Working from photographs of the room and the extensive notes that were collected during its dismantling, the installation will seek to preserve the feeling and character of Darger's original space.